Dr. Matthew Kauffman Receives Aldo Leopold Conservation Award
Dr. Matthew Kauffman, USGS Research Wildlife Biologist and Unit Leader of the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, was the recipient of the 2024 Aldo Leopold Conservation Award. The information below is adapted from the nomination letter released/obtained by the American Society of Mammalogists.
"Matt's vision for the migration corridor project was foundational to the Department of the Interior's Secretarial Order 3362, signed in 2018. Under Matt's leadership, the Ungulate Migrations of the West initiative now includes 11 states and five volumes (soon to be six) covering six species and 218 distinct herds. The report series serves as a map-based inventory of the ungulate migrations across the Western U.S. for biologists, managers, policymakers, and conservation practitioners."
Matt Kauffman wins the 2024 Aldo Leopold Conservation Award
The Aldo Leopold Conservation Award is awarded by the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM) to a well-established individual who has made a lasting contribution to the conservation of mammals and their habitats.
Dr. Matthew Kauffman, USGS Research Wildlife Biologist and leader of the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, was the recipient of the 2024 Aldo Leopold Conservation Award. Matt was nominated by an international peer group from the University of Wyoming, the Fondazione Edmund Mach (Italy), and the Goethe University and Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Germany).
Matt has led the USGS’s Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Wyoming since 2010
He received the award on June 30, 2025, at the Plenary Session of the ASM’s 104th Annual Meeting at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Matt has been the single most effective wildlife conservationist in the Intermountain West, and that he has done so as a productive, top-notch ecologist is nothing short of remarkable. Matt is central to the impact of the Wyoming Coop Unit, which is the Wyoming Migration Initiative, created by Matt in 2012, and culminating in the publishing of ’Wild Migrations.’
American Society of Mammalogists Conservation Awards
Matt joins an impressive group of awardees. In 2003, the inaugural Aldo Leopold Award recipient was E.O. Wilson of Harvard University for his valuable contributions to mammalian conservation through his development and promotion of the concepts of biodiversity. For more information about the recipients, visit the AMA Conservation Awards page.
Dr. Matthew Kauffman
In 2012, Matt co-founded (and now directs) the Wyoming Migration Initiative (migrationinitiative.org), whose mission is to advance the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of Wyoming's migratory ungulates. He teaches graduate seminars in quantitative analysis of spatial wildlife data, community ecology of wildlife, and migration ecology.